Week 10: 5 Lions Who Impressed and 5 Who Did Not

In an unusual game where the Detroit Lions did not have QB Matthew Stafford, the dynamic of the team was out of sorts. Not all that surprising, the Lions lost to the Chicago Bears without the leader of their team.

Anyway, there were more than a few solid individual performances as well some bad. Let’s take a look.

5 Who Impressed:

1. LB Devon Kennard

Kennard went through a long stretch of sackless games, however, he finally got that chip off of his shoulder on Sunday when he was able to get to Trubisky. Kennard had three sacks in week 1 of the season against the Arizona Cardinals and this is his first one since. Besides the sack, he also gets credited with a couple of pressures. An overall solid day.

2. S Tavon Wilson

Wilson had a very nice game filling in the battered Lions secondary. The veteran had the third-most tackles and a sack of his own from the safety position. He has been a reliable swiss army knife of a defender this year –whether he is been in for Tracy Walker or Quandre Diggs.

3. P Sam Martin

Martin had a heck of a game on Sunday and I have yet to see anyone one give him his due. Martin had six punts and four of them pinned the Bears inside their own 20. Three of those were even within the Bears 11-yard line. Martin gave the Bears offense a long field to deal with every time out.

4. DE Trey Flowers

Flowers led the team in tackles with seven as well as adding another sack. He leads the Lions in the sack department on the season with five. Flowers took a little while to warm up from his offseason surgery, but he is now starting to make the impact that that was expected of him.

5. QB Jeff Driskel

Driskel actually had a solid game with the exception of three to four throws. His interception was one of the worst passes I’ve seen in the NFL this year, but it was only one play. On the other 45 attempts, he did a pretty good job considering he was facing a top-10 defense and only found out he was going to start a few hours before the game.

Driskel also led the Lions in rushing yards, which is something I predicted may happen. I believe he needs to use his legs more and not only rely on them when he’s getting pushed out of the pocket. He averaged over seven yards per rushing attempt.

5 Who Did Not:

1. RT Rick Wagner

Wagner just shows a lack of effort on some plays, and if it’s not a lack of effort, it is a severe lack of skill. He also had a penalty that took away a gain of seven on a first down play. I can’t stand a second and three becoming a first and 20 because of silly mistakes. Admittedly, this was Wagners first accepted penalty on the year, so on the penalty front, he has been a very clean player this year.

2. LT Taylor Decker

Decker has been the king of penalties this year with six. That ties his career-high for a season and he has only played in eight games this year. This one was about a 50-yard penalty because his holding call brought back a 40-yard pass and turned it into a loss of 10. That penalty basically kept Driskel from having a 300-yard game against a top 10 defense in his debut.

3. TE Jesse James

James had zero catches for zero yards but did get called for a penalty on offense. He has to take advantage of opportunities in this offense by getting open when his number is called. Not only that, he hasn’t been great at run blocking either. I hate to say it, but we are halfway through the year and James is looking like Bob Quinn’s biggest mistake as a Lions general manager.

4. WR Kenny Golladay

I know I’ll probably get some flak for this, but I don’t care, Kenny G committed the most costly mistakes of any Lions player in my opinion. He had three catchable balls that went through his hands and all were on either third or fourth down. He essentially killed three separate drives. Golladay would also go on to commit an offensive pass interference, albeit a soft one, negating a first down on a fourth-down play on what might have been the game-winning drive.

5. RB Paul Perkins

Perkins had the second-most carries and the 4th most yards (least of any player with a carry) in this game. His seven carries for a total of nine yards put the Bears defense in a great position on second and long. If you double Perkins yards per carry, he would still be the least efficient runner the Lions had on Sunday.